Taking Care of Business

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup,

You hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

(Psalm 16)

Well, on the last edition of Apartment 1004, Chrissy had highjacked my blog. Offensively, that particular blog post received twice the amount of hits as any of my posts before that. My feelings have been so entirely demolished that I've been unable to post for the past two weeks, preferring to walk up and down lonely streets, brooding to myself over my future blogging career.

Also, we've recently moved into a new house and it's been very busy.

Originally, I was going to make this a thank-you post to the Hummels for renting to us the most beautiful house we've ever experienced. However, I simply can't think of words that would not cheapen this tremendous blessing. For now, I hope a simple "thank you" will suffice, and this blog itself will hopefully be a fitting tribute to the generosity that is making these new memories possible.

To make up for the upsetting lack of posts during these past two weeks, I'm going to include six photos this week, and one of the photos is actually four photos. Furthermore, this post will be organized into three sections: two photos on "Taking Care of Business" in the new home, two on the eclectic life of the Vance girls, and two on Jesse's recent birthday party, which was postponed until today due to our impending move.

Now that we've covered the organizational structure of the update, let's dig in.

Taking Care of Business

I think I mentioned that we've been busy. That's a huge understatement. Here is a to-do list that I wrote up for Chrissy and me.

(Note: I'm trying, to no avail, to keep Chrissy from working like crazy. She quickly jotted down several more things like "cake" and "birthday party". She's a very hard worker. )

I actually spent until 9:30 last night harvesting some veggies, herbs, and spices from the garden (what is the difference between an herb and a spice?). Here we have just a few stalks of rhubarb, some parsley, thyme, oregano, and chives. Having very little cooking experience, I'm not really sure what people do with these herbs, but I understand that they make things flavourful. By the end of all this harvesting, my hands smelled like a turkey dinner. 

The Vance Girls: The Legend Continues

What, you might ask, does Janna find to do with this enormous and beautiful house? Well, I'd reply, sometimes she dresses up like a fairy and sits in a chair.

Robyn, in the meantime, is never quite so chill. We left the room for a couple of minutes and she had "sampled" seven of the eight remaining watermelon slices. At first I thought she felt bad....

...but that misunderstanding was soon corrected.

Nothing changes.

 The Belated Birthday Party

The candles were lit. Jesse gripped the table with both hands and peered into the flames. What was he thinking? Was he wishing yet again for his own bouncy castle? Was he wondering why we were celebrating his birthday more than two weeks after he had turned five? Was he desperately wishing the wind wouldn't blow out the diminutive candles that seemed somehow symbolic of his childhood innocence?

We'll never know.

In the end, though, it was a very happy occasion with lots of his close friends. I bet this will be the first birthday that he'll remember as an adult. 

At the end of the day, we're joyfully exhausted. Perhaps this will be our state for the next few years.

We'll take it.

Profoundly thankful,
Until next time...